The Ghost Diner (South Texas)

“One cold and foggy night many years ago, my wife and I were cruising around due to the fact that we both were on vacation and had a bonus check. That means with money in my pocket we decided to have a nice road trip. So off we went to visit many places. Since we purchased an atlas in a gas store we decided to go along and make that road trip. My wife came up with the idea of tracing a circle pattern in the atlas map so following that circle pattern we went to San Antonio, also went to visit the children of the railroad tracks (SA). After that we went to Marfa, Texas to visit the Marfa lights and so on .

After 5 days of a road trip, I was very exhausted from driving. So on our way back home, we decided to drive back at dusk to avoid all the afternoon traffic. So as we were driving back home, night fell upon us and with almost 3 hours left to get home, we started to get hungry. So I told my wife to start looking for a place to eat. Being almost midnight and cold and almost foggy we spotted a big neon sign that read, “All night dinner. Anything you can eat for a small price”. So I told my wife, “Perfect, just what we were looking for.”

My wife got kind of confused and freaked out cause who would have an all-night diner in the middle of nowhere and to the side of the road? At that time I didn’t pay much attention to that cause I was starving and all I wanted was a nice meal. So I just brushed it off . We went inside the diner and got served real good. The waitress was very nice and all got to eat till we got stuffed. Being inside I noticed the restaurant was a little old style. Nothing like a diner nowadays. Chairs, tables, everything looked outdated. And another weird thing we came to notice after we left the diner was that we were the only ones there. Well, after a nice meal I got up to pay at the front register which I found weird cause it was also outdated, it was one of those registers which they pull a lever down and it opens with a bell sound.

Thinking maybe it was just part of the restaurant and they wanted to keep everything old-fashioned. I brushed it off but where in the world would they find an outdated register nowadays? Another weird thing was the waitress had no cellphone and had an old-fashioned hairstyle that nobody uses nowadays. Well, to make a long story short I took out two $20 bills to pay thinking maybe it was gonna be a little expensive, but to our surprise, the whole bill came out to almost $10 dollars. I told the cashier if she was sure that was the total since we ate a lot and got stuffed with a lot of food. She said yes that’s the total.

As I handed her a $20 bill I told her to keep the change as a tip. Since it was worth it. She couldn’t thank us enough since to her it was a very generous tip. So she thanked us and invited us to return whenever we passed by. After we were back on the road we were so satisfied and happy because of the good customer service we had. Talking of coming back real soon. Since it was just like 2 hours from home . Two weeks later we decided to pay another visit to that old-fashioned diner. But this time it was during the day. We went but to our surprise, we drove around back and forth and we couldn’t find the diner. We were so dumbfounded cause a couple of weeks earlier the diner was there. There was no way we could’ve missed it. All we found was the ruins of a very old building, no roof no windows just the falling old walls and overgrown grass. I scratched my head thinking maybe I was in the wrong place or town. But no I was in the right place and town, all we could see was that old building in ruins. So kind of perplexed I stopped a local and ask about that diner and the local got shocked and asked us, “How did you know there was a diner here?” And I said, “Wait a minute what do u mean was?”

Supposedly we ate dinner there a couple of weeks ago. The local said that the place got burned down by a fire more than 40 years ago. And all the workers perished in that fire. I started to shake my head in disbelief and exclaimed to the local that it was not possible since we had a very good meal almost two weeks ago. The local said he had proof of he was saying. So he got out his cellphone and opened a news app and searched that diner and showed us where it mentioned the fire and the diner. He also came up with the photos of the people who perished in the fire and there was the kind waitress who attended us that night.

So scared and confused, we thanked the locals for the info, got in the car, and drove out of that town in a hurry. My wife and I were so scared and in shock trying to comprehend the experience we went through. I’m scared cause I remember vividly that night and no wonder everything seemed outdated. But what happened to us that night? Did we go into a time warp and end up back in time when the diner was in full function? Or did we come face to face with phantoms? This happened back in December 2014. Does anyone have an explanation for this? The town I can’t remember the name all I know is located after passing La Grulla, Texas close to Zapata, Texas.” -jvillalon36